RIT Launches Special Ceremony to Welcome Female Students

While women students may be in the minority at Rochester Institute of Technology, they are not alone. That is the message that will be conveyed to first-year female students during RIT’s first Lighting The Way ceremony at 8 p.m., Aug. 31.

“The purpose of this ceremony is to create a new tradition to welcome women to RIT and to symbolically pass the light of learning to the next generation of students,” says Donna Rubin, director of RIT’s Women’s Center.

The ceremony will begin in the Gordon Field House and Activities Center with speeches by a number of RIT representatives, including Vice President of Student Affairs Mary-Beth Cooper and Student Government President Lizzie Sorkin.

Following the speeches, faculty and staff members will light lanterns for the students and join them in a procession to Grace Watson Hall for a reception.

The event is sponsored by the Women’s Center, the Office of the Vice President of Student Affairs and the Office of the Vice President of Finance and Administration.

It is modeled after an 86-year-old tradition at the University of Pittsburgh.